casemate

From French casemate, from Italian casamatta, probably from casa (“house”) + matto, from matta (“mad, weak, feeble”), diminutive from the same source as English mate in checkmate.

casemate (plural casemates)

1. (military) A bombproof chamber, usually of masonry, in which cannon may be placed, to be fired through embrasures; or one capable of being used as a magazine, or for quartering troops.
2. (architecture) A hollow molding, chiefly in cornices.

• casemate in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913

• meatcase

From Italian casamatta.

• IPA^(key): /kaz.mat/

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casemate f (plural casemates)

1. pillbox, blockhouse

• “casemate”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.